A Friend for Bunnymund
by Aspendragon
Summary: Sophie's been around Bunnymund long enough to realize that no other bunnies inhabit the Warren. Fearful her bunny is lonely she turns to a new student teacher (the last of the Red Hot Swamis) who can do magic tricks! Traditionally, Drick could just loan her a rabbit from his hat, but of course, things never go that smoothly. Bunnymund X OC
1. Prologue

****Spoilers from the movie and the book series.

__**A Friend for Bunnymund  
**

****By Aspendragon

__**~ :: Prologue :: ~  
**

_Sophie once had a thought – her bunny didn't have other bunny friends. He had eggs, he had a lot of eggs and after the last few of years of knowing him personally, she could safely claim she heard him talk a lot about eggs. In the Warren were rolling hills, thousands of egg warriors of multiple sizes, he even had a collection of eggs. Some real, others jewel encrusted. Yet where were the other bunnies? _

_She had been in Kindergarten almost an entire half-year and made it a personal goal to learn to read as fast as she could. Despite her attempts, Jamie still had to help her pronounce certain letters. Her teacher was impressed with her progress, but she still had a lot of learning to do._

_When December rolled around, North made it a priority to see to it Jamie and Sophie both got to visit the North Pole and sit on his lap, not one of his "helpers" at the malls._

_It came as some surprise, shortly after Jack left to return Jamie and Sophie home at the end of their exciting visit, that North went in search of his favorite storyteller for a very special request. _

_That following Christmas Day, Sophie found slender, squarish parcels wrapped in brightly colored paper beneath the tree containing numerous books on rabbits. Sophie wanted to know as much about rabbits as it was possible, for she loved Bunnymund and he took her out on so many fascinating trips as Jack did with Jamie, even at her tender age of five she knew she had to return the favor and what better way than to get to know more about bunnies (beyond their love of eggs, for he already had too much of those) than to read about them. So she asked Santa Clause for books on them._

_Unfortunately, Bunnymund was away for the winter, he would be in Australia until Jack migrated back to the uppermost reaches of the globe. Whatever gift Sophie and Jamie had planned for Bunnymund (as they always had gifts for their guardians) would have to wait until February, but that wasn't always a guarantee. The Groundhog and Easter Bunny never always got along. She very well may not see Bunnymund for an additional six weeks! _

_She took her studying very seriously and not only did her literacy progress, but so did her knowledge on the Leporidae. During one of her readings with Jamie, she had a thought. _

_So many rabbits and hares existed (and as Jamie teased, plenty of marsupials, of which he had to explain meant wallabies and kangaroos) Sophie thought it was odd her bunny was the ONLY bunny in the Warren. Surely he had some hare friends to race, or jackrabbits to hang out with, maybe a cottontail neighbor that likes to eat prized vegetables like the one in their backyard?_

_When she failed to recall other rabbits in the Warren the thought distressed her and she shared this with Jamie. This upset him too, in fact, the very idea that Bunnymund may be lonely in his Warren brought together Jamie's friends. Despite losing their belief for a short period of time due to Pitch's nightmares, the guardians also had no qualms with sharing their time with them as well as they did with Sophie and Jamie._

_Cupcake had grown very fond of Sandman with his way of transforming her dreams of unicorns into golden reality. Pippa sometimes went on ventures with Jack and Jamie. Tooth had been ecstatic to find Caleb and Claude losing a lot of their baby teeth, but grew less so when she found out it was from crashing their new dirt bikes. North's easy laughter and hearty demeanor brought out the spirit in all of them, that was how it was and will always be._

_So of course, when they put their minds together in a small clubhouse they begged Jamie's dad to build in the backyard beyond the vegetable garden, they came up with some very troubling news indeed._

_North, or as they knew him Santa Clause, had Ms. Santa Claus, although they had never personally met her because she was absent during their intervals at the North Pole. Nonetheless North often mentioned her fondly. _

_Sandy, they were exceptionally certain, slept when he was not busy putting others to sleep or spending time with Cupcake. _

_Tooth had her Baby Teeth, the children found it especially entertaining to see how the two crushed on Jack and knew Tooth was not short of company. _

_Jack Frost, well, he would hint at tidbits of his past and they all knew now that Jack spent a long time without any companionship outside the guardian circle. The free-spirited guardian was happy with having young friends and when he couldn't see them due to warmer weather, he would either anger a summer spirit and freeze it up to visit or hang out at the North Pole with Santa Clause._

_Alone in his Warren, Bunnymund had eggs with legs to talk to. He didn't like the cold one bit, so it wasn't often he moseyed up to the North Pole for a chat with North and Frost. Tooth ran a beehive, she could stop every now and then when they were ahead of business or the daring children in the world were wearing mouth guards, but she only left her palace if trouble was afoot. Sandy slept and quite frankly, was the most surreal of the guardians and seemed less in need of constant company than his comrades._

_The children decided it would be best to ask for professional advice, perhaps Bunnymund didn't have any other bunnies around because he didn't want anyone around (other than eggs). Pippa was quick to point out he might be a martial arts master in need of a place of his own to meditate, or at least that's what she assumed when thinking about a tribe of elemental air nomads from a cartoon, but Monty pointed out even the Avatar had a lot of friends._

_Jamie brought their problem to Jack Frost's attention. Which in turn Jack brought to North's attention and thus, Jack learned of Bunnymund's Pookan heritage and the sad tale behind it. Jack didn't want to relay that message to the children he protected, he was the Guardian of Fun! He couldn't bring himself to tell Sophie her bunny was the last of his kind, that Bunnymund lived in a place still bearing scars of Pitch's purge of the Pooka._

_Jack couldn't lie either, so he improvised. Bunnymund couldn't possibly be lonely, he might have been before, but now he HAD Sophie, he had the children believing in him. In the end he convinced them, but not himself nor Sophie._

_Sophie still felt unsettled about the matter and her five-year-old mind couldn't place the feelings she was feeling. Jack disliked the idea he might have something in common with the kangaroo-rabbit, despite their newfound friendship they were still competitive. North told him Bunnymund had been alone far longer than Jack had been before he stumbled upon him looking for lost relics. The winter spirit searched the recesses of his brain for ways eggs made better company than nobody being able to see you. None came and his thoughts left him feeling guilty for thinking them in the first place. He made a mental note not to freeze another Easter Sunday again._

_For the next couple of snow-laden months Jack and the children moved on past the idea of Bunnymund being alone, but it still bothered Sophie._

_When the Groundhog extended winter Sophie's disappointment dispersed with the arrival of a student teacher. A curious young man with a gift for pulling rabbits out of hats, real live ones that hopped and everything! Her brother and his friends decided Bunnymund was fine, he was a very old guardian with cool boomerangs and an accent, he must have friends outside the Warren they were unaware of! _

_Maybe this awesome student teacher could help her out, after all, if he believed in magic, he would have no problem believing in her Bunnymund._

* * *

_Rise of the Guardians © Dreamworks/Joyce  
_

_Story © Aspendragon  
_

I'm also posting this story on my deviantart page, just look for Aspendragon. :) I will also be posting illustrations.


	2. In Which Sophie Makes a New Friend

**Chapter One**

**In Which Sophie Makes a New Friend**

Sophie was the only one amused by the new teacher, well, he was learning to be a teacher he said. His name is Drick, so the kids called him Mr. Drick because their (real) teacher told them to do so.

The morning school bell and announcements were made and over with five minutes ago and already Drick had them amused and laughing obnoxiously. Only Sophie wasn't laughing, but she was smiling and watching with a twinkle in her eyes as Drick lost control over his own magic hat and now, children were bustling through the room with many little albino rabbits.

Ms. Lyles honestly found rabbits charming and adorable under the right circumstances, but not in her room which she tried to keep meticulously clean. Allowing the young college student to introduce himself free-style to her students apparently was not the best course of action.

"They don't bite do they Mr. Drick?" she asked now, wondering what would become of her if the principal walked in right at that moment.

Ms. Monika Lyles had only graduated with her own teaching degree a couple of years ago and just barely managed the position she acquired as a kindergarten teacher before the school year. The administration that hired her was straitlaced and rigid, the principal even more so, so one can certainly imagine her distress.

"Not at all, not at all!" cried Drick cheerfully as a rabbit bounded through between Lyles ankles. Drick shot out his hat and the rabbit slid into it while airbourne. It vanished into the black abyss that made up the hat's interior and the children found this even more exciting.

Sophie herself had to see if the rabbits really vanished so she and the other kids joined in the hunt to catch the wayward creatures. When she caught one Sophie ran over to Drick and held it up to him.

"Thanks Alice, mind putting him down the rabbit hole?" Sophie didn't catch the metaphor and didn't bother telling him Alice wasn't her name, but she eagerly dropped the rabbit into the offered hat.

It was an odd hat, a very old one too. Sophie thought it looked almost as old and worn as the hat in her brother's favorite Harry Potter movies, but she reasonably argued it looked more like a Mickey Mouse sorcerer's hat…but without the stars.

Patched in varying shades of blue, stitched crookedly and neatly, frayed on some edges, but very long and pointed. Maybe that's what made it so magical, it was old. Sophie imagined all things magical must be way older than her.

The rabbit she caught jumped into the hat without invitation however and Sophie didn't get to properly see it whisk away from view. Drick must have seen her disappointment, but misunderstood it.

"Don't worry, I take very good care of the rabbits that live in my hat." Drick claimed, Sophie shook her head.

"Where do they go?" Sophie questioned, do rabbits just sit in the hat until they can run around classrooms or do they spirit away to the Warren? Imagine that, all the rabbits Bunnymund lived with were always with this man when she came to visit! They were a handful after all-

Sophie had another thought. Drick smiled, unknowingly blowing on the flame Sophie sparked.

_Perhaps this man was a friend of Bunnymund's? _Bunnymund was very watchful of Sophie when she was in the Warren, surely he wouldn't let his friends be with someone he didn't know!

"I have a very special place for them, a field with green grass everywhere. They can frolic and leap all they want," he said, Lyles, who was standing right beside him gave a melodious laugh that made Drick turn pink in his ears and cheeks.

"Is that why there are so many of them?" she asked, as more children were putting more rabbits back into the hat, her distress became less and less.

"Well, they are _all_ female, well, sort of." Came Drick's reply, Lyles nodded with understanding although the meaning was lost to the children.

Drick's answer made Sophie think of Bunnymund once more, her previous thoughts being put temporarily in storage in the back of her mind for further pondering later.

"Do rabbits like to be with other rabbits, like people like to be with other people?" Sophie asked.

"I think rabbits are very much like people, they can be ok on their own and be ok with other rabbits." Drick answered as he was trying not to be distracted by the other children's questions.

"Hold on everyone! One at a time-wait! That goes for the rabbits too – they're not peeps!" Having to turn away from Sophie to prevent three rabbits from getting too squished as a trio of children tried to push their own catch into the hat at the same time, Sophie ran over to a bookshelf to pull out her favorite book. She couldn't really read all of the alphabet yet, but she learned to recognize the title of _The Country Bunny and The Little Gold Shoes_. Ms. Lyles reads a book to them every Tuesday and Thursday, this had been one of them and Sophie absolutely adored it.

Of course, for one particular reason.

The book claimed there were five Easter bunnies, but she knew only one. Maybe this book was right, might there be more Easter Bunnies? Were there other Warrens?

_Why not_? Sophie imagined, the Tooth Fairy had a lot of little Tooth Fairies, maybe Bunnymund has a lot of little Bunnymunds running around in different warrens. Those Bunnymunds could be the ones being put into Drick's hat now!

This had been the argument shuffling about in her head and between her and Jamie for the last two years. Sometimes they would bicker until she would cry and Jamie would get teary, Pippa and Cupcake would comfort and sympathize with them.

"_Why don't you get Bunnymund a girl rabbit Sophie?"_ Pippa said with a shy glance toward Jamie, then Cupcake awkwardly procured a stuffed rabbit with a bow tying its ears together.

"_It has to be a real bunny!"_ Claimed Sophie.

Sophie stared at the book, wondering if she should just put the idea to rest until Spring came, it had been bothering her for over a month now after all, then she would ask Bunnymund if he had plenty of rabbit friends. She hoped so, she loved her stuffed animals, but she couldn't imagine not having her mom, dad, or brother around.

Drick had just put in the last rabbit when he looked up and found the small girl who kept asking him questions about rabbits. She sat in a corner with her legs crossed all alone while the other children talked and tripped over one another. Ms. Lyles had noticed too, but she was used to her behavior and knew she would come around when she called for attention.

"All right everyone! Let's show Mr. Drick all that we have learned so far, get to your desks please!" Ms. Lyle called out and because the students were so caught up in their rabbit frenzy, she had to call out again. Sophie was the first one to her desk, she reached underneath for paper and pencils and instantly started drawing rabbits.

Taking a second to spy on the book the girl (he found her name to be 'Sophie Bennet' from the card taped to the desk's surface), he found why she was so curious about where his rabbits had gone.

_She's a believer too,_ he thought joyously as he rejoined the classroom in fun study, making a point to use rabbits as a term whenever appropriate or when there was a good time to use one in a metaphor.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I keep illustrations and concept work up for the story on deviantart under Aspendragon! Thanks for reading so far!


	3. In Which a Message is Sent

**Chapter Two**

**In Which a Message is Sent**

**Bunnymund**

"Sleepless in the Warren eh?" the outback accent slipped off his tongue as he applied a fresh touch of paint to a now blue egg. Although underground and taking up a vast amount of space, the rocky face of the ceiling glittered in the soft blackness.

Magic brought night to the Warren, it brought day too. Somewhere in the distance Bunny could pick up on a faint whirr of the eggomotive (an egg-shaped train) being polished by some of his mechanical egg warriors. With a sigh, he put the egg he was holding down on its legs. It happily pitter-pattered around the surface of a flat stone Bunny occasionally used when he wasn't on the move.

Minerals in the rock of the ceiling glittered lazily, giving the Warren a faux starry night sky, Bunny eyed some small lights that dotted the landscape, he was sure to have the oval-lily lanterns lit throughout his territory. A pleasant invention he made and was still more than happy to bring it up around North, who considered himself a grand inventor.

The lanterns were prepared to flicker only at the arrival of a nightmare man or fearling, but since his last defeat Pitch hasn't been sighted. But Bunnymund had lived long enough to know it was better to be safe than sorry and that as long as fear existed, so would Pitch.

Fear, it had proven on multiple occasions, was not something to disappear forever and thus, Bunnymund had made these lanterns.

He wasn't altogether fond of the dark anyway, keeping still long enough to rest was the hard part. The small, surviving vestige of his prey-fear of the darkness, grown from his vulnerable years prior to his Tai Chi training, haunted him in his burrow when shadows skulked about his precious Warren.

Bunnymund yawned broadly, his teeth pressing together a moment later when he stretched. Nocturnal was not his thing, he had a productive week, he needed to have a break the pooka decided.

His bright green eyes scrutinized his arm guards, he slowly pulled them off and hid them among some sleeping shrubs along with his baldric.

At a fully grown height, legendary six foot one, a pooka was said to know of things as old as time itself and know more than people did despite it's resemblance to a rabbit. A pooka knew the ideas humans believed they invented themselves, but it was knowledge the pooka allowed them to come to know. When things became too old, he came about every year ushering in fresh and new motivation. Imagination is one of the keys to progress, the keys to expand knowledge. Bunnymund did not contain the wisdom of the universe and all it's workings (although he would like to think he sometimes did), but he could help inspire innovation.

It had been a while, but Bunnymund took a few long strides along the side of a crystal-clear pond. Nothing lived in it save for a few too-ovular lily pads and water hyacinths that changed color due to the river dye nearby. The pooka scanned his home, giving every nook and cranny a critical, appraising eye.

He allowed his mind to wander as he continued to walk, he wasn't in any hurry – for once. Bunnymund told himself to enjoy the view, he was always too busy painting eggs and racing around the world to keep his hundreds of thousands of tunnels safe and stable.

It wasn't until he came across an old, worn-out carving in a shattering of rock beyond the pond did he come to a stop. The rock carvings were hidden behind some rushes Bunnymund only knew were there because he had discovered them prior to all the vegetation overgrowth.

Once the carving was meticulously etched and painted, but now the color was gone and resembled a crude chisel job.

Bunnymund raised his dominant right paw and touched the carving, he inhaled sharply, as he normally does when the nostalgia hits like a sharp jab to the throat. His ears dropped and his legs depressed like springs in a mattress when one might sit on it. Times like these he felt the age, the fatigue of doing what he was doing.

Always thinking of spring, always thinking of new beginnings, it was a yearly thing. Sometimes Bunnymund wished he could hibernate like that Groundhog, during these times when the world was at it's coldest.

Suddenly he sneezed, he never sneezes. Bunnymund rubbed at his eyes when he realized there was wetness there and his feet sprang up and maneuvered him away from the old drawing. The rushes returned to their original position, as if they were never disturbed.

**Drink**

On the third day of Drick's student teaching career he was walking up the steps to his small apartment when another college student was on her way in as well.

"Hey Drick, how was school today?" she asked, Drick gave a dramatic sigh.

"She finally cornered me Chlo, I thought this day would come, but not so soon!" the young woman raised her eyebrows in amusement down on Drick as he wavered on the wall of the stairwell. She stood lopsided because her backpack only hung from one shoulder, the other was bent to better balance herself against the railings.

"Are you talking about the Rabbit Girl?" she asked, Chloe O'Hare was a pretty, robust woman with hints of a tiny waist between the folds of her paint-splotched jacket. While Drick wore the usual collared, solid palette shirts tucked into a pair of black slacks on his beanpole frame, Chloe was "endowed" with a large chest and wide hips. Endowed being a key term, the hours it spent shopping for good bras was not a priviledge for anyone. She invested in a messy major in the Fine Arts and extra studying in the minor of Zoology left her nicer clothes in the closet.

Broad shouldered and narrow footed, Chloe thought it best to keep to her loose, warm sweaters and worn out denim pants and shoes that threatened to fall apart with every step. During the day she studied art history, painted for hours, drove to work through dangerous traffic then returned to her apartment just in time to spend a few grueling hours pouring over frog anatomy.

Today was different though.

"Sure am, it's kind of cute actually, I wonder what would happen if I had them watch Monty Python?" he wondered out loud.

"Encourage them to believe rabbits can be carnivorous?" Chloe proposed as she searched for her keys in the depths of her coat pocket. January was proving to be a bitter month.

"It's freezing outside," Chloe said, but Drick huffed.

"You're such a baby," Drick replied.

"Easy for you to say, you were born in the winter." With a sharp, uneven jingle Chloe yanked out her keyring from her coat pocket's clingy grasp.

"That has nothing to do with it Miss-I-study-science-you-know," Drick teased as he too pulled out his own apartment key. "Want to come in for some hot chocolate?"

"Sure, I need a break." Chloe said, "just let me dump my stuff back in my place."

"Lock it up tight too," Drick pointed out, the woman gave an exasperated nod before disappearing into her apartment.

Drick entered his apartment and hung up his coat and dropped his heavy messenger bag by the door before summoning his family heirloom out of thin air. An old, blue sorcerer's hat. Frayed, patched, eaten, vomited back out, it's been in the family for as long as Drick can remember and he had a really good memory.

He placed the hat on the counter and was just warming up some milk when a knock came onto his door.

"It's open Chlo!" he said just loud enough for her to hear, the woman came in with quiet footsteps. Her coat was gone and now she wore a green sweater, her shoes were replaced with fluffy slippers and her long red hair had been taken out of it's unkempt bun and now splayed over her shoulders haphazardly.

Drick was very comfortable with Chloe, they were great friends since freshman year. There was no sexual frustration or chemistry between them, just a neutral atmosphere where Drick didn't find himself tripping over air molecules whenever their eyes met.

Not that Chloe was unattractive, he just preferred blondes, like Monika Lyles…

"Crap!" he yelped.

"What is it?" Chloe jumped up ready to help if Drick somehow caused a fire making hot cocoa.

"I forgot the lesson plans in the classroom!" he exclaimed, a crack of thunder was his response.

Knowing there wasn't any real emergency, Chloe sat back down and sunk into Drick's sofa.

"A thunderstorm in January?" she muttered to herself as Drick fumed over his own forgetfulness a few feet away.

"Strange things always happen, y'know, speaking of strange, I think I figured out my last spell," Drick claimed as he finished pouring hot chocolate into a pair of mugs. From this last statement, Chloe perked up and fixed Drick with a grin.

"I knew you would! Does this mean no more rabbits?" she asked as he walked over and handed her one of the mugs.

"Thank you ~"

"Not entirely, I have to keep them around for my favorite student!"

"You shouldn't have favorites Mr. Magician," Chloe scolded before blowing softly on the steaming mug.

"Shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't, bah, as long as I'm not vocal about it at conferences, it won't be known." Drick laughed, but when he went to take a drank he recoiled.

"It's still hot," she observed.

"Thanks for the warning," he replied dryly.

They sat in silence for a bit until finally Chloe said:

"Practice first, you're not using a transfiguration spell on me till I can see you do it on another living creature." Chloe replied, ever since they became friends Chloe had seen Drick perform a number of spells such as turning a person into a toad. When he managed to turn the person back into a human she was all for being a test subject, but not for toads. So far, she had been a snail and a parakeet, but rabbits were bigger.

"All right, fine," he reached for his hat.

"Don't be a smartalec and pull out a rabbit," said Chloe before she finally took a sip of her drink, Drick deflated a little.

"What makes you think I was reaching for a rabbit?"

"Because you were," was her retort, Drick plucked up his hat and reached in as Mary Poppins would with her carpet bag. Chloe heard his hand shuffle through glass beakers, knocking over a stack of books, even heard a flutter of wings before he pulled out a snail. It lived in a little terraterium, obviously as well taken care of as the rabbits. He pulled out the snail and put it in front of them on the coffee table.

"Don't hurt it," Drick chuckled as he gave Chloe a 'I-won't' look.

Despite the experience she had in both witnessing and in taking part in magical spells, it was still quite nerve-racking seeing a goldfish turn into a bird or vice versa. It took her a year and a half to gain the amount of trust in Drick and self-confidence to believe she can help take part in the spell before she herself could be turned into a snail.

Drick had always been in the magical business, he didn't have a particular major, he wanted to study everything, but magic was his passion. Transfiguration was a huge stepping stone and the bigger reason why Chloe decided to take part in it would be a story for later.

While Chloe watched Drick close his eyes and concentrate, the snail sat complacent on the smooth surface of the table. It's slime oozing off of it's slippery skin as it waited.

Then he began to chant, Chloe instinctually clutched her mug tighter. It was heart pounding, but exciting at the same time.

Drick's chanting became louder, the lights in the apartment began to flicker until finally a rabbit sat where the snail originally had been.

Impressed, Chloe picked the rabbit up and looked it over.

"Completely and utterly bunny-like," she praised, Drick beamed.

"Can I try on you now?" he asked cautiously, but Chloe was content to sit there and cuddle with the sluggish rabbit.

"Let me see you change it back…then can he be a rabbit again? He's so cute!" Chloe cooed.

"I have more than enough rabbits and only one snail," Drick replied with a mannerly tone, Chloe pretended to pout as she returned the rabbit to the table, a few minutes and some chanting later the snail returned.

"Satisfied?" he asked, Chloe laughed.

"I guess I should be,"

"I would offer to pay a guy off the street to demonstrate, but I have to be careful on who I tell about magic – it's only because you too are of magical descent I haven't gotten in trouble." Drick lectured, much like he did with a student who was caught cheating playing Duck, Duck, Goose.

"I know, I know, and I trust you," she said as she put the mug down then put her hands in her lap. Her eyes focused on Drick.

"Thanks," he said softly, she blinked, she waited.

He raised his hands then began his chant.

The clock on the wall and on Chloe's wrist ticked on, Drick's brows furrowed in concentration, a person was a lot harder to change the shape of than a snail's or a rabbit's. The lights flickered again and continued to do so until Chloe was sure they would pop.

Something was going wrong, it had been two minutes – a spell's incantation shouldn't be any longer than forty-seven seconds!

The light's flickering was getting absurdly creepy, Chloe could have sworn she saw eyes peering out from the crack between the pantry doors in the kitchen. Drick was glistening with sweat and still chanting as if he had put himself under a trance!

"Drick?" she called out at last, feeling something akin to fear when he didn't respond.

"Drick?" she said again, leaning toward him, his arms were practically flailing now and she had to duck at one point. The lights stopped flickering, but were now glowing brighter.

_The shadows are growing._

A blackness took hold of Chloe, she fought it off as she reached for Drick.

"Stop!" she cried, his hands rose and held.

"_Schmendrick!_" she called out his full name, a silly name he inherited from somewhere far down his family tree. Without thinking Chloe raised a hand and smacked him across the face.

It was as if she flipped a light switch, literally.

The lights went out when Drick's arms fell. His entire body went limp and Chloe grabbed the front of his shirt in hopes he wouldn't hit his head against the coffee table. His pet snail continued to lounge on the table, Chloe saw it out of the corner of her eyes when a flash of lightning lit the room.

Much to her shock and fright, she saw something else in the room. She only had that split second the lightning filled the room with light, but she saw a tall, black...was it a shadow? A shadow of a man? Or at least she thought it was a person, it certainly looked like a person.

A groan from Drick brought her back to reality, she forgot about the strange vision of a tall man dressed in black standing in Drick's apartment when she was sure she imagined it. She managed to adjust him properly onto the sofa before scurrying toward the wall looking for the light switch. When she couldn't find it she pulled out her phone and looked out into the hallway.

Oh good, the entire building was out of power, so the idea of Drick's magic putting the electricity out wasn't the culprit. With a sigh, Chloe shut the door and with her phone lighting the way, she rummaged through the kitchen cupboards hoping either Drick or his absent roommate had the sense to keep a flashlight handy.

A lantern – even better. Standing the lantern up on the card table they used to eat on (normally), Chloe went to check on Drick.

He's breathing - he is fine, Chloe reasoned he was just drained of a day of kids, studies, and magic. The spell didn't go through, which was indeed a good thing since she couldn't imagine being able to drag Drick to his bed as a rabbit.

His roommate wouldn't be in until three or four in the morning, that guy worked and slept odd hours and had late classes. If she left now Drick would be sleeping on a back cramp-inducing couch for the next few hours.

That meant, in the dark, Chloe would have to heave Drick into his own room and put him to bed, he would have to sleep in his clothes, she wasn't about to overstep those boundaries.

Stepping behind him, Chloe bent down and slid her hands under his armpits then around his chest. It took some puffing and huffing, but she eventually got him off the couch and successfully dragged him into his room. With the elegance of an elephant, Chloe brought on a surge of strength to lift Drick's upper torso onto the bed. A few minutes later Drick was placed completely on the mattress with an arm hanging off the side and his other limbs splayed haphazardly across the surface.

Throwing a blanket on him Chloe felt triumphant, he would surely thank her in the morning when he found her across the hall, but he wouldn't be happy knowing he failed to turn her into a rabbit.

Magic was tricky business, he would just have to practice on the stray cats like last time.

Chloe was nice enough to put the two mugs that were once filled with hot chocolate in the dishwasher, she turned off the lantern, pulled out her phone again before making the short trek back to her apartment.

Once the door to Drick's place clicked closed, a trick of the faint moonlight made her think she saw her hand change shape, but when she put her phone on it all she saw was flesh.

"Must be getting really tired," she whispered to herself before getting to her door.

_SSSSSShhhhhhheeeeeeewwwwwww…_

Her body froze, the blackness from before latched onto her as it did when Drick looked no more than a lifeless puppet only less than an hour ago.

Slowly, agonizingly, she looked to her right, pulling up her phone in process. The hallway was empty, but that odd sound? Who or what made it?

Small beads of sweat began gathering along the skin of her face and behind her neck, Chloe did not have a reasonable explanation as to why she was afraid. She saw nothing, the power was just out, nothing serious was going on but a weird, out-of-season thunderstorm.

She fumbled with her keys and their jingle against each other and the wood of the door made a loud clang, in the back of her mind something told her whatever made that noise must have heard her keys. Chloe's eyes began to water as her long fingers stabbed everything but the keyhole until finally, the key clicked into place and she flew into her apartment, slamming the door behind her.

She only walked a couple feet, but her body heaved and sweated as if she had just finished a full marathon. Leaning against the door, Chloe slid down and rested the back of her head against it.

Maybe it was just her imagination playing on her, she never really outgrew her fear of the dark as a child. She was fine when another person (she was familiar and comfortable with) was present with her, but she couldn't fully handle pitch black.

Her apartment was just as dark as Drick's and the hallway, but she knew it's layout very well. Standing up she skipped out on her usual nightly routine and changed clothes and slid right into bed. With the power out, she would have to settle with putting her comforter over her head since she needed her phone to save whatever battery it had. Her nightlight sat cold and dark in the corner of the room and the numbers that normally glowed a brilliant white on her iHome were absent.

A couple of times throughout the night Chloe would freak herself out, thinking something else was in the room with her and would imagine a hand running along the blankets over her form.

Everytime she gathered the courage to look, nothing would be there.

_Don't be so silly Chlo,_ she thought to herself, _you stopped believing in the Boogeyman years ago._

She struggled vainly to stop thinking and to just fall asleep, but good slumber would avoid her until after midnight.

**Sophie**

Across town another was having difficulty sleeping.

Sophie and Jamie had decided to play shadow puppets until their parents told them to go to sleep, but Sophie wanted to keep making bunnies out of her hands long after Jamie returned to his own room.

Imagining each hand was a rabbit, Sophie pretended one was Bunnymund and the other was his friend. Unlike Pippa, Sophie didn't care if his friend was a girl or boy, but she thought it might possibly make a difference. Jamie, Monty, Claude, and Caleb were very boyish, like Bunnymund, they all liked the color blue. Pippa and Cupcake were very tough and were good friends with the other boys, but they kept a clubhouse which Cupcake painted flowers and unicorns on.

They would all meet in the tree house in the Bennet's backyard, but the girls had the clubhouse in Pippa's. Sophie was allowed to go to both, but the boys had to have passwords to visit the clubhouse. It wasn't often they could go in, Pippa and Cupcake changed the password whenever they felt it was convenient to, a.k.a. whenever a boy wanted in.

Sophie thought back on _The Country Bunny and The Gold Shoes_, she would have to ask Bunnymund if there were other Easter Bunnies, but so much waiting had to be done first!

With a frustrated grunt, Sophie dropped her hands onto her stomach and closed her eyes.

A few seconds later when she failed to slip into the land of sleeping bliss, she restlessly kicked off her sheets and meandered over to her craft desk, a low-lying table in the center of her room. She cautiously turned on the light, waited to make sure she wasn't about to be shooed back into bed, then she took a piece of paper and began doodling and writing the best she could.

"A…friend…?" How did one spell "friend?" Sophie wasn't that far ahead of the other students, now she was really frustrated! She could only draw.

Crumbling up that piece of paper as she had seen her dad do it in his office, she took a clean sheet, thought a bit, then began drawing on it.

If she couldn't write what she wanted to say, she would simply draw it.

An hour later Sophie stared skeptically at her meticulously drawn artwork.

"I know it's a little late Santa, but I didn't give you a list last year, this is what I want though," she whispered and getting it to the North Pole would be a cinch! She had connections after all!

Turning off the light, Sophie then clambered up to her window. With a large smile she saw frost beginning to grow on the other side of the glass, bingo!

With all the strength she could muster, Sophie unlocked the window and pushed it open the way Jamie showed her.

"Jack?" she called out just loud enough a nearby winter spirit might hear.

She leaned out so far that her blonde hair danced in the wintry night breeze.

"Jack Frost?" she called out again, a great burst of cold wind blew by, catching Sophie by surprise. It took the paper from her hands and whipped it out of sight, she figured this was Jack's doing.

"Get it to Santa Clause please ok?" she called again, not knowing the wind had strayed off from Jack a good mile away and only meant to play with the paper until Jack called for it again.

Sophie closed the window and watched the trees sway under the moonlight, it seemed to glow brighter than it did a moment ago.

The small girl climbed back into bed, satisfied that she had come to a conclusion to a pressing matter, she could sleep easily now. Jack was a trickster, but he would definitely get the message to Santa Clause.

"A friend for Bunny," she said sleepily, she yawned and her eyes fluttered closed.


	4. In Which Chloe Meets a Witch

**Chapter Three**

**In Which Chloe Meets a Witch**

**?**

"Silly, silly descendent of the mages. Can you imagine? He did finally gam up a transformation spell, I told 'im it would be difficult once ya tried to rabbit a 'uman! But nah, Nicodemus taught a talented fool and that fool bore a bloodline! I told 'im then potions the way to go! Ugh! Wood…where is that cedar I ordered…ah-ha! Here it is!"

"Caw!"

"Hush! Be gone with you! I've got commissions for the fair to work on!"

"Cawww! Bunny-girl!"

"I said HUSH! There be important guests to expect and I've got the exact time right here! Ha! Remember that time I pulled that good prank on that Merlin? He could never get the exact time of the guest's arrival right again afterwards haha!"

"Caw!"

"Now where's ma carver…"

**Chloe**

It was January thirtieth the next day, or at least that's what her calendar said. Chloe figured it would just be like all the other January thirtieths, about around this time she would lose her ability to keep to her New Year's resolutions, she would start packing more Oreos in her snack packs, wear uglier sweaters, the list goes on.

But when Chloe O'Hare took a step out of bed she had the most uneasiest feeling something was incredibly off. Of course, as life would have it, what was _off _was anything, but obvious. She sat for a few minutes and pondered over whether she had forgotten something the night before. Did she have an exam today that had completely caught up to her without notice?

"Ugh, what did I forget?" she sighed to herself as she pushed off the mattress, she tousled her frizzy bedhair with a yawn.

_Oh well,_ she thought, _it'll come to me when it comes to me._

She secretly hoped she hadn't forgotten an upcoming exam. _Anything_ but _that_.

After a warm shower and carrying on her usual morning routine, the off-ish feeling continued to grow until a deep, very unsettling one wriggled in the pit of her stomach. Chloe went over her semester syllabus and double-checked her school email, there wasn't an exam, but the feeling remained.

On her way to the kitchen section of her tiny apartment she slammed one of her pinkie toes into a piece of furniture. The heavy tumble and loud curses might have awoken the occupant downstairs if they were not already awake, but now the pain in her toe made her openly scowl and after fetching some food from the pantry she slammed it shut.

_What the heck is going on with me this morning?_ Chloe was normally a morning person, but today proved to be the opposite.

She started noticing unusual things other than the unsettling feeling growing more unsettling within her. First of all, she didn't grab cereal from the pantry, she grabbed an almond bar. When she thought of it being a simple mistake, she found she no longer craved Capt'n Crunch like she normally did. She didn't want milk either, just water.

_Maybe I'm not failing my New Year's resolution after all,_ Chloe thought as she wrote off her subconscious food choices.

After packing a lunch (again, more almond bars, even a salad and baby carrots instead of Girl Scout cookies and a peanut butter sandwich) she pulled on her winter coat, slid her pack on her back then Chloe made her way to Drick's apartment.

His roommate answered the door.

"Hey Chloe," he greeted sleepily, apparently she just woke him up, "what's going on?"

"Sorry to disturb you Liam, but did Drick leave for school already?" Chloe asked, Liam nodded sleepily.

"He woke up late, only reason I know was that he was bumping into everything this morning. Knocked over some stuff too, but he already headed out." He claimed, Chloe smiled and thanked him.

"Sorry again!" she called before he shut the door.

_So Drick's all right, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to school…right?_

The feeling in her stomach remained and bugged her for the next several hours.

Chloe arrived at the downtown campus in her dad's old car, worn as it was it didn't make odd sounds and had four-wheel drive. Unlike Drick, her pace was casual as she wasn't in any rush, in fact, she was early today. Early by an hour, she would just work on some thesis research then.

There were a lot of stairs at the campus, so many that all the students would get to their classes out of breath. Chloe knew this for a fact, she had been there for nearly four years! She had surged up the vast incline to her school building, tackled the three flights of stairs (the elevator ran so slow only those with heavy canvases and broken bones waited around for it) and managed to get to her small studio without panting.

_I must be in better shape than I thought,_ Chloe rolled out a new sheet of canvas, cut it at about eighteen inches then started stretching it over a frame she made the day before.

Green and orange were in her color pallet today.

Class began promptly at nine A.M., Chloe fidgeted in her seat as the professor started complaining about the poor grammar in their last papers. When she got hers back at the end of the rant, she was horribly disappointed to be greeted with a C-.

_I went to the writing center and everything…_ Chloe thought madly to herself, not realizing that she was nibbling on a corner of the paper as the professor introduced the next section of the syllabus.

By the time her second class ended around two Chloe was ravenous and for the first time she could remember, ate the baby carrots without so much as a thought about them or even an "ew" wince.

Eventually realizing this, she stopped for a moment from reading her Nineteenth Century Art textbook to eye the last baby carrot in her hand.

"Did I really…" Chloe pulled away her textbook to look at the snack pack, the empty plastic bag next to it threatened to blow away with the smallest wintry breeze. Speaking of wintry…

She wasn't that cold either, she had aimlessly walked out of her school building toward the center of campus with her winter coat over the crook of her arm. Now she was seated near the admissions building with a half-eaten lunch with a vegetarian appetite near strong enough to drive her to ransack the botanist's greenhouse!

Looking around Chloe quickly noticed she was the only one not deeply bundled in a winter coat and a scarf! A few passerbys were giving her strange looks, but Chloe was so wrapped up in her odd experiences she didn't notice.

_I am NOT myself today,_ she thought and with a huff, she put down her textbook, stood up to pull on her coat, sat back and then dug into her coat pocket for her phone.

_Maybe something DID happen last night when Drick failed to turn me into a rabbit,_ she thought.

Drick didn't answer, but Chloe knew why and lightly smacked herself in the forehead. The guy was at school, dealing with kids, the rabbit-girl…

_Rabbits, ha, it's almost like I'm…one._ Chloe's eyebrow twitched, she thought it was a little crazy. But it _would _explain the vegetables, her near restless behavior with sitting still in class, nibbling on paper, being quicker and more athletic than usual, the warmth she felt although she lacked fur…

Chloe thought back on her zoology studies and placed a hand over her heart – it was beating faster without exercise or anxiety. Was she simply just having a strange day or did Drick's spell manage to unsettle her human biochemistry with that of a rabbit? A slight shift in diet and taste buds or something? She only knew so much, she dissected a frog recently not a rabbit!

Frowning Chloe made her way back to her studio.

For the first time in her college career, she skipped a class. She emailed her professor telling her she wasn't feeling well, had a stomach illness or something. She spent the next several hours in her cramped studio, as she painted the more fidgety she got, she couldn't hold still. Hundreds of times it felt like she had eyes on the back of her neck, she would spin around and no one would be there.

Drick called her back around eight forty in the evening.

"Hey Chlo, I'm sorry I missed your call, what's up?" he asked lightheartedly, he seemed to be in a pretty good mood and Chloe almost felt guilty.

"Look, it might just be a strange day, but I thought you should know, I'm thinking even though you failed to turn me into a rabbit I still received some side effects." She replied hastily, she heard a light, feminine voice on the other side of the phone, Drick said something then turned back to their conversation.

"I figured you weren't a rabbit when I woke up and you weren't chewing on all the toilet cardboard rolls, the ones in my hat tend to do that." He joked, but then he got serious.

"What 'side effects' are you talking about?" he asked quietly, perhaps because of the owner of the other voice was near.

"I'll text you a list, I have a feeling you're not in knowing company." Chloe said, Drick sighed with relief.

"That would be good, but you're not in any danger right? I didn't give you…um…physical effects on accident?"

"No, no, you have fun on your date." Chloe laughed lightly despite the unease inside her stomach.

"Don't be silly, we're not dating…we can't until I finish student teaching." He whispered, then more brightly claimed, "Well, I'll hear from you soon I'm sure!"

"Bye Drick," after Chloe hung up she stared at her phone a few minutes, then sent a quick message to Drick on her odd cravings and heightened athleticism before turning back to her painted canvas.

_Snap!_

_Clonk!_

Startled, Chloe whirled around, her hair standing on end.

"Chill, Chlo…"_ It's just someone in the wood shop, honestly, stop being such a spaz!_ But her heart raced and she started telling herself to go home, she did more than enough work today. _She just needed to go home._

_Clonk! Clonk!_

Chloe kept looking down at the floor, the wood shop was right below the painting studios and the harder she thought of it, the stranger it was.

_Wait…doesn't the shop close at seven?_ She looked at her phone again and with a start realized it was past nine. Stepping out of her studio she was greeted with the wall-length windows lining the hallway. It was after sunset, the trees rustled and the stars were glinting eerily. Branches tapped the glass, mimicking long, spindly fingers. The professors occupying the sporadic offices had already gone home, other students were nowhere in sight. Chloe was alone on the fifth floor of the art building.

_Clonk! Ssshshshshshslllllll!_

_CLONK!_

"Seriously! What are they doing down there?" Chloe was never comfortable in the wood shop to begin with, but if someone was in the shop after hours when the owner had already locked up she felt obliged she would need to call the campus police. Quietly she hurried to the stairwell, once she was down a floor she got a little nervous.

_What if they're armed? No wait, they're in a wood shop, there's plenty in there to be afraid of without a gun!_

Before reaching the door that led inside the wood shop Chloe stopped herself from doing something other people would deem stupid and reckless.

_Just call the campus police, Chlo, no one should be in there right now, it's dangerous when-_

"CAWWW! Bunny-girl! Harebrained!" Chloe's head snapped toward the door.

_Was that a bird?!_ So not only was there some dumb student inside, but they brought their pet parrot too? Chloe was beyond confused and being the avid animal lover she was, decided being in the wood shop after hours was one thing, but to bring in pets? Unthinkable and unforgivable, there's equipment that handled multiple watts of horsepower! If this student was novice enough to bring a pet…

Chloe narrowed her eyes on the door as she marched towards it.

"Harebrained!" came the squawk again, Chloe frowned.

_How funny, even the bird knows its owner's breaking rules!_ Chloe placed a hand on the door handle and pulled it open.

"Hey! You're not allowed in…here…" Chloe fell into a speechless, gob smacked state when she walked into the wood shop, only it was a different sort of wood shop. Perhaps from a different continent (a different time) this would be considered an artisan's shop, but this was definitely _not_ the college's modern wood shop.

The room somehow expanded, carvings of rabbits and hares and pikas were placed in numerous amounts on stumps and wedged into gnarled corners. Wooden chimes elaborately decorated with rabbit feet and teeth, a cuck-coo clock chirped with a cottontail instead of a canary. In the center of it all hummed a rickety old lady. She sat whittling away at another wooden figure smacking her gums and avoiding splinters. A raggy old black bird ambled about on her hunched back, it noticed Chloe first and fixed her with a beady-eyed stare.

"Almost done dearie, give ma a moment or two." The old lady stated, she was very animated for her age and would reluctantly glance at Chloe here and there. Meanwhile, Chloe would have given the woman more time to finish what she was doing, she was in awe of the place.

_Did Drick realize he made some sort of horrible mistake and called in the expert or something?_ Chloe took a few steps away from the woman to analyze a nearby carving of a giant rabbit or maybe it was kangaroo.

"Don't touch that! Tis a gift and not for you!" the old lady jumped at her, making Chloe practically leap back in the wall as the lady flailed her hands of which one was holding a carver.

"Ok-I won't! I won't!" Chloe yelled until the woman was appeased.

"Hmph! No appreciation for artists! Pah!" the old lady kept a shrewd stare on Chloe as she slowly made her way back to the center of the room. Chloe would have returned the stare had she not been made so uncomfortable.

"Hey!" just processing what the woman said, Chloe found herself retorting, "I would think as a Fine Arts major I would appreciate art in general! The woodwork is beautiful."

"Pffff, you paint, you slather gooey pigment on some toothy canvas with beast hair, art's knowin' what's on the canvas before yer a paintin' it! Michelangelo told the world the carving's in the marble, he just had to cut away at it till the world could see it! You have skill enough to tell the difference between orange and red, but what have you developing craft and concept together eh? _Whatcha_ paint girl? Boxes and apples?" The old lady pointed at the kangaroo-sized rabbit Chloe near died getting too close to.

"That there pooka knows paint, he knows what he be doin' with it, he's a real darlin', but an ego to 'im. Only reason I know he'll like it," the woman began turning the conversation inward, almost as if she no longer intended for Chloe to hear anymore of it.

Feeling ignored Chloe was tempted to get close to the giant 'pooka' (whatever that was, it looked like a rabbit to her) again, but thinking on it a second time she didn't feel particularly interested in the lady's flailing hands again. She chose a less dangerous route.

"Ma'am? Who are you and what are you doing here? I'm guessing you're an acquaintance of Drick's?" The lady mumbled to herself, the black bird descended too far down her shoulder and she swatted at it. Chloe frowned.

"Ma'am?"

"Yeah?"

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Chloe asked, her fascination with the extraordinary magic it must have taken to change the room and transport all of these objects kept all and any impatience from her voice.

"Watcha think? That friend of yours failed to cast the spell all the way, so I's gotta come in and fix it, I don't and you'll slowly morph into some disturbing, grotesque creature that would look neither like a rabbit or a girl! Honestly, ya think I hop around casting these relocating spells for thrills?" the old woman slapped her gums as she spoke, Chloe disliked watching her talk and tried to keep her eyes focused on hers.

The old woman's eyes were wide and unfocused, giving Chloe the impression this woman was not altogether in the head and a tad mad.

"I'm…changing into a rabbit?" Chloe gasped, maybe that had to do with the unsettling feeling!

"Yes and no! Weren't you listening! A chimera creature, a deformed beast, Schmendrick the Fifth should have known better than to be distracted! He's getting too cocky! Getting ahead of himself! Pah!"

"So you _are_ a witch then? Are you Drick's master?" Chloe raised an eyebrow at the old lady.

"No, no! A friend of the master's, yes, but the man's elsewhere and apparently can't be bothered, let's begin yes?"

"Wait!" Chloe yelped as the old woman approached her with an unforeseen swift gate. She backed the college student back into the wall right next to the giant rabbit.

"You've got a half-spell over you girl, that's a problem because the magic hovers over you and slowly turns you into something completely different cuz it isn't directed properly! Thing is, I can only do so much, potions are me specialty, I'll give you a brew in a mo'," the woman snapped a tight grip onto Chloe's arm and dragged her out of the wood shop before promptly shutting the door.

Her black bird swished through at the lost moment, it flew right into Chloe's chest and all she could see between gasps of shock and fear were ebony feathers.

She heard her fingers snap and the world suddenly shifted.

"Come now, come now!" The old lady yanked Chloe back in, the black bird flew in after them. Again, Chloe was caught dumbfounded. Drick was nowhere near talented or powerful enough to pull off relocation and here this woman was doing it at the snap of her fingers! Drick often told Chloe his master perfected relocation as a teenager and what was to be said for poor Drick who almost turned his friend into a chimera?

The witch's wood store had disappeared and left behind a shadowy stone cottage, a cauldron with wispy, emerald liquid issuing smoky tendrils stood in the center.

"Complete transformation…" the old witch started muttering to herself again as she waddled around the cauldron, "needs some mending and some folding…"

Chloe was hearing some jibber-jabber about 'threads of natural toadstool magic' before the woman started throwing in what seemed to be random ingredients into the cauldron.

When she was done, the liquid inside of the cauldron had turned blue.

"Ombric likes a good hare stew," the old witch stated to no one in particular, Chloe gave her a disturbed look.

"You're fixing me right?" Chloe asked now that the woman seemed to have some intent of turning her into an animal just to cook her.

"I said mending and folding didn't I?" the witch scowled at Chloe before taking a ladle and dipping it into the concoction.

"You did," Chloe admitted, the witch took the ladle and into a napkin she pulled out of thin air poured the liquid into her waiting palm. As the potion poured it solidified into a danish, the final dash of it covered it in a thin, pasty glaze.

"Never as good as it looks," the old witch warned with a cackle as she handed it to Chloe.

"I'm under the distinct impression I'm Snow White and you're the evil witch," Chloe replied as she carefully scrutinized the brewed good.

"Aye, did I say something about apples? Maybe…? No matter, human hearts isn't meant to be put into boxes." The old witch then started pushing Chloe out the door.

"H-Hold on! Shouldn't we make sure this works? I don't know about you but I would like to make sure I have one spell working right?" Chloe asked, the old witch brushed the question aside.

"Good potion, beyond excellent actually, eat up, come back in if you have more questions, I'm all about good customer service! Haven't gotten a bad review in over a hundred years!" the woman laughed as she returned inside the room, shutting the door behind her.

Chloe stared at the door then looked at the danish in her hand.

"I guess you could pass for a bearclaw," Chloe said, the danish said nothing in return.

"Well, if I were to be smart about this I wouldn't eat it, but…Drick said potions can expire…what if the spell in this wears off and by the time I get Drick's approval…" Chloe pulled out her phone, it was after ten, Drick would be asleep and he slept like a log.

Chloe's heart rate begins to skyrocket, the same questions running through her mind.

_Eat it, the woman was nuts but she had to know what she was doing right?_

_Don't be crazy, you learned from a young age not to eat anything handed to you from a stranger! This lady totally counts as a stranger! What if it's poisoned?_

Yet the idea of turning to Drick in hopes of him helping made her voice of reason escalate toward the mystery danish. Drick wasn't of the power to fix the misdirected magic he cast, but did this woman qualify where Drick doesn't?

_Only one way to find out, I don't want to morph into a rabbit-thing do I?_

Chloe hesitantly opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the danish. For a moment, she did feel like a poisoned Snow White.


	5. In Which Bunnymund Makes Plans

Enjoy.

**Chapter Four**

**In Which Bunnymund Makes Plans**

**Bunnymund**

Bunnymund eyed the Warren restlessly, his eyes reflecting the bright shade of grass.

It was unusual, but it happened.

He was ahead of schedule this year.

_It's almost February,_ he mused, he ran a paw across his marked forehead as if a headache was forming. _I'll need to meet with that bloody Groundhog soon, if I leave earlier than last year I could beat Jack…_

For years Bunnymund struggled to bring spring on a regular schedule, most of the time winter was prolonged six weeks, but occasionally winter would shorten.

Last year it was discovered Jack Frost had befriended the paranoid Seasonkeeper decades ago. Apparently it didn't take Guardian status to convince the Groundhog to keep winter around longer. Bunnymund nearly cooked an omelet between his ears when he found out Jack had been manipulating the in between of their seasons for so long.

Bunnymund idly hoped an autumn or summer spirit were not named Guardians, for a long time Bunnymund was the only Seasonkeeper of the Guardian circle until Jack came along. Prior to his Guardianhood, Jack had been troublesome enough, but post his new status and the discovery of his memories, Jack founded a small domain for himself and ultimately, grew more powerful.

_Like he wasn't before,_ Bunnymund thought with a mental droll.

The pieces on the abacus that Bunnymund crafted out of Warren oak _click-clack'd_ as he slid them into place.

_I had to triple-check,_ he thought. Now that he was absolutely certain he was ahead of schedule, Bunny favored the idea of bringing spring on time this year (not six more weeks of winter) and enjoyed the idea of what he could do with those six weeks of free time.

Ever since his alliance with a small home of fairies a couple of centuries ago, their seasonal powers certainly helped speed up spring and Bunny had to rejoice in that decision. With the highest child population ever, Bunny needed all the time he could get to paint eggs and the very idea of a (Bunny's ears frantically swiveled at the idea) _vacation_ had his nerves tingling.

"That's it, Jack ain't persuadin' that liver-bellied rodent to keep on hibernatin'! Not this year!" Bunnymund made plans to leave a couple of days before Groundhog's Day to beat Jack to the punch, he never would have considered spending more time than he had to in the Groundhog's presence, but if doing so promised time off (of which he hardly experienced in this century) then yes!

Bunnymund practically pranced throughout the Warren making a list of what he could do and tasks for the eggs in the mean time.

**Chloe**

_What am I doing?_ She withdrew her teeth from the pastry and wiped her mouth with a sleeve.

_Magic has gotten me in enough trouble, I'll ask Drick about it first, I trust him, not some crazy out-of-the-blue, self-proclaimed witch!_ Thought Chloe.

_Who has given you the tendencies of a rabbit,_ chirped another voice, she batted it away.

_A talk with Drick first or maybe…nothing is actually happening._

The next couple of days continued as they had on the day Chloe first received cravings for almond bars. She came home from her studio that fateful night and put the pastry in a small tub ware container then placed it in the pantry – instead of throwing it away like she had planned originally.

On top of that, she had started having dreams of the giant rabbit statue.

Or at least of _something_ that looked an awful lot like the statue in the old witch's woodshop.

The dreams were nearly always the same, the only different being the time of the day. When the first one came about behind her eyelids she could barely see the outline, but the next night a small light like the rising sun lit the world in her dreams.

_This rabbit, large and lean, was hunched over and sat on its hutches as per a normal rabbit would do. However, this one kept its tail up firmly (as if always on alert) and its ears were tall and focused on the little creatures on the ground in front of it._

_Little yellow balls of fluff tripped and climbed over one another, the ducklings bunched themselves against the large feet of the giant animal and quacked at it until it turned its head down toward them._

Until the light grew brighter a day later Chloe would not see the egg and the long paintbrush the rabbit grasped in its forepaws. It busily worked a design on the egg until the quacking became too much and it would turns its head toward them and with a soft, cooing noise like a mother to her own children, the rabbit appeased them with its voice.

Granted, Chloe never actually _heard_ it make noise in the dream, but she could imagine that was what it was doing while it's lips moved. She could only hear the noisy ducklings.

"Seriously Chlo? You're dreaming about the Easter Rabbit?" she thought out loud to herself, Chloe was in the library with her art history textbooks all open to various pages with empty and half-filled flashcards scattered among the pages.

A passing librarian assistant shushed her and Chloe grinned back sheepishly. When the assistant left Chloe sank her chair with an uncomfortable groan. She had been in the chair for hours and her feet were twitching and wouldn't stop moving beneath the table. The rabbit-like tendencies had gone so far she was tempted to chew on her flashcards.

_Do rabbits chew on cardboard too like hamsters and rats?_ She thought when the urge hit her strongly.

She put her head down for a moment and cradled it in her arms atop one of her open books.

_I'm tired and antsy all at the same time, how does that work…?_

Chloe hadn't realized she had fallen asleep until she awoke to a sharp pain shooting through her fingers and toes. Abruptly her head shot out of her arms and Chloe had to hold back a screech of fright.

Her fingers were _shorter_ and her knuckles had grown thicker. In her shock she brought them to her mouth to cover her gasp, but this sudden deformity snatched them away. Rubbing her eyes quickly to wipe the short-lived sleep from them, Chloe turned her hands back and forth. She looked up around the library and found it was mostly empty save for the few stragglers.

Her fingers were throbbing and she could see them growing with the intention of curling when she realized her feet were hurting her too. Swiftly Chloe reached down and slid a shoe off and found the same thing happening to them!

Freaked out beyond words the only thought that came to her was what the witch had some several days earlier:

"_**You'll slowly morph into some disturbing, grotesque creature that would look neither like a rabbit or a girl!"**_

Chloe tried to stuff her shoe back on and just barely while resisting the urge to shout – her feet were growing longer while her hands grew shorter! She could feel her shoes causing some restriction as she began stuffing her paper back into her bag and whatever books were actually hers, the rest she left on the table as she dashed noisily out of the library with multiple librarians and students glaring at her back.

She began to wince as her toes were pinched to the front of her shoe.

Her speed was increasing beyond her normal running ability, but it was deterred by the pain in her feet.

_Staring or pain? Staring or pain?_ She debated mentally as she practically hopped down several stairs.

She couldn't take it anymore when she reached the edge of campus and she stopped to rip off her shoes.

Her feet were growing ridiculous lengths and Chloe feared she needed to take the back roads to avoid anyone seeing her.

_I'll just pretend I'm working on an anthro costume or something if anyone asks…_ but Chloe's focus was on the witch's danish in her pantry.

Without the pain of the shoes squishing her feet running was easier and smoother and more importantly, faster. She didn't stop until she was jogging up the stairs of her apartment three at a time. Her fingers were so badly stunted by the time she reached her doors it was a struggle to assemble a key in her hand-paw to shove it in the door.

Wrenching the door open she ran inside, tumbling about into the table and throwing her backpack to the ground. She saw herself in the stove's metallic reflection and was horrified by what she saw.

The witch hadn't been kidding – everything about her was morphing and she couldn't say it was cute and fluffy, only ever so slightly beast-like. Her face had narrowed and had taken on blotches of orange-red spots and fur was growing out in ugly places along her jaw line as if it didn't know where to grow. A few wisps of whiskers managed to sprout but were in sporadic places like along her eye brow and another out of her chin.

Her teeth scared her just as horribly – what should have been perfect teeth from years of braces and flossing became an uneven set of buckteeth and canines struggling to look more veggie-friendly.

Chloe dug through her pantry until she found the small tub container, wrenching it open she had the danish in her hand within seconds.

Regarding it suspiciously once more it only took another reflection in the stove for Chloe to finally bite into it.

It tasted horrible.

Like Brussels routs and chocolate cake, like any bad food pairing would taste like.

Chloe gagged it down then waited.

Did it only take one bite to revert the spell?

The witch didn't tell her how long it would take for the spell to take effect. _Did it expire? Should I get Drick!?_

_Crap_!

The witch, however, did say to come back and visit her for any questions! It was after seven now, so that had to mean she was occupying the student woodshop now right?

Chloe looked down at herself, at least the throbbing stopped which could only mean she was no longer turning into anything more beastly right?

_I'll just find a bigger pair of boots and a bigger hoodie,_ she thought.

Everything had become a challenge, Chloe could almost say she felt like a handicap with a mobility problem. Her feet had not grown the same lengths, one foot was shorter than the other by an inch, she constantly tripped over the longer one. Her balance had suddenly become a stranger, her eyesight was unstable. One moment everything was clear, then blurry, then sharp again.

Whatever was happening she needed to get back to the witch to make sure everything was working properly.

If she ever managed to get there that is.

Chloe arrived to her room and had thrown her closet open and had a hand-paw clutching a promising hoodie before it happened.

She began to shrink.

Rapidly.

_Oh no! Nononononononono! _Chloe looked down at herself, but this was a mistake. A wave of vertigo hit her hard and the room began to spin. Forced to release the hoodie Chloe grasped her stomach and fell back against her bed. In her dizziness and stomach pain she rolled off the bed and moaned violently against the decade-old carpet.

_What's happening!?_

_**"Complete transformation…"**_

_Hold on! UGHHHH!_ Thought and reason left her amidst severe vertigo and a massive headache. Too ill to do much else, Chloe lay there curled in the fetal position till her body decided to stop shaking and changing.

"I'm _done_ with magic!" Chloe hissed the moment her breath let loose, her diaphragm shuttered and she felt very weak.

Her bones fell like limp noodles and her mind oatmeal mush, but despite all this, Chloe climbed to her feet anyway with the use of the nearest bed post.

"That witch _was_ poisoning me!" She moaned as she stood on quivering knees.

Chloe raised her eyes to glare at the wall expecting to see the mirror when she angled her face toward it. Slowly she raised her head as well, the mirror was a lot higher than it had been before. In fact, she hardly cleared the bedpost on her feet.

When she had been taller she could only feel the swift beat of her heart when she was exercising or when she was nervous, now however, she felt a normal heartbeat pounding against her ribcage as if it needed to beat faster under no duress.

Chloe was very afraid to look.

_**"Complete transformation…"**_

_Did the potion merely finish what Drick had started?_ Chloe closed her eyes and took a deep breath before raising her hand to her face.

Only that it was a paw, a very healthy paw with bony knuckles covered in coarse fur.

Had Chloe not had prior experience turning into animals she would have leaped backwards out of fright, but now she could admire the handiwork of the potion. A voice of worry and shock still permeated her thought process, but Chloe was taking a look at the rest of herself.

Lithe and sinewy, light and long, white and red-chestnut, Chloe O'Hare turned into her namesake!

_Not a rabbit at all! That's what Drick's spell probably got tangled in! He was thinking of my full name as he was chanting the spell!_ Names were very important to a magical incantation and it was possible Drick very well could have turned her into a rabbit, but the fact that 'hare' was also a part of the equation made the magic confused.

Hare and rabbit were similar, but different species. Probably why the magic had been intent on transforming her into a chimera instead since the evoker had two different animals in mind to begin with!

Getting to grips with her new body Chloe tumbled all over the place before scampering up onto the bed, leaving the clothes she had been wearing previously in a heap on the floor. Large ears twitching against her skull was a new experience, human cartilage never allowed her ears to move before!

The more she felt hare-like, the more she began to enjoy herself. Chloe stood as far as she could on her narrow hind legs to get a good view of herself in the mirror across from her bed.

_I still, kind of, look like me!_ She thought, her hare body still hinted at her wide hips and had a round and strong chest. Patting her tummy fur down and feeling for her cotton tail, Chloe was just beginning to understand her new predicament when a knock came to the door.

_Drick!_ Chloe jumped off her bed and sidestepped a few times upon landing before dashing toward the door.

"Drick!"

"Drick! Guess what! This witch was in the art building and when I met her she gave me this pastry to finish your spell and now I need you to turn me back!" Chloe was pawing the door since she couldn't reach the knob.

"Chloe? You in there?" Drick's voice asked from the other side.

"Yes Drick! I'm here! Didn't you hear anything I just said?" Chloe cried, but Drick was determined to remain deaf to her words.

"What's that squeaking?" she heard him mumble to himself and it made Chloe feel ice-cold.

_Squeaking?_ Her nose twitched and she slowly sat down. A few seconds later Drick's footsteps faded away into his own apartment, leaving Chloe behind confused and frightened more than ever. The door loomed over her like a gate to Dante's Inferno, no longer was the pastry's success in turning her into a rabbit fascinating and mystical.

Without a voice or another pastry to turn her human, Chloe felt the world crash around her.

_Would Drick even recognize me or even think its me?_ She thought and panic made her tackle the door, gnaw the edges until her new buckteeth ached. Another pair of shoes, more feminine with a dull _click_ against the apartment complex's flooring. Someone knocked and Drick answered the door, a woman greeted him and vanished into the apartment. Chloe's wide eyes darted around her suddenly colossal apartment.

Night was setting in again and the shadows were growing.

Heart rate racing she found herself escaping to her room and flying under the covers. Beneath the sheets the bed became vast, there wasn't a spot of snugness or a sheltering nook. Despite this, she didn't leave the covers for fear of the pitch black descending upon her room.

Fear gripped her small heart as she squeaked against the mattress in a shaky ball of limbs and fur.

_What am I going to do?_

* * *

_A/N: Almost to the point where Bunnymund and Chloe become the central focus of the story (without Drick) so I can tackle more of the Warren lore and Chloe herself! Can't wait to get the other Guardians in here!  
_


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